Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

A few days ago, my wife brought this to my attention. I think it's interesting that I have been seeing the start of a grassroots movement toward old-fashioned, traditional values. I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy, and have been sickened by modern society for some time. I feel that the above link ties in nicely with my Truck Nuts Entry. For that matter, it ties in well with several of my entries. I'm getting so sick and tired of people with the victim complex, trying to assert their "rights." If people would stop and evaluate whether what they perceive as their rights infringe on anyone else's rights, many of the world's problems would simply vanish. If I feel like I have a right to a bigger, nicer car, but realize that you worked hard and paid for your car, and have a right to keep it, I'm not going to steal it from you. Similarly, if I feel that I have the right to do whatever I want to my body, but understand that the baby growing inside me has his or her own rights, I might think twice about killing him or her. Ouch. I went there. Fortunately, I don't stand much chance of ever personally being in that position, due to the fact that I'm a man. --not an altered woman on Oprah at that!

But, I'll now get back to my point. I hold doors for women. Heck, I hold doors for other men. My Bible says to love my neighbor as myself, but treat others as if they are better than me. This is not to say that everyone is to have an inferiority complex, quite the contrary. If I am nice to you, and feel that you have been such a great friend to me that I can never repay your kindness, and you feel the same towards me, nothing will come between us. Plus, my God has given me a responsibility to be His light in this world. I'm not always successful, but I do try.

I treat my wife with respect. I may give her a hard time every now and then, but it's always in good fun and full of love. I don't believe that I am better than her, but I do know that I am stronger, and that it is one of my life's duties to take care of her and keep her safe. It is also one of my life's duties to instill these values into my son, so he can grow up to be a man and not a criminal. He is well on his way to becoming a good man (Thank you, God!).

I'm risking some feminist flames here, but in our household when we make decisions, I get a slightly heavier vote than Jenni. This is not because I'm better, wiser, or more intelligent. This is because someone has to be assigned as the tie-breaker. To date, I have not "put my foot down" on any issue. On the rare occasion that there has ever been a disagreement between Jenni and me, we have talked our way through it and come up with a compromise. Indeed, the head-of-household vote is not something that I take lightly, but we have assigned it for the worst-case-scenario impasse where we must make a decision, and simply cannot agree on what that should be.

I don't know why society is the way it is now. People in general don't believe in personal responsibility, gender roles, or the rights of others; and yet they do believe everything that they see on T. V. It makes me sick. I believe though, that we are on the cusp of a revolution - for the better or for the worse. I would personally like to think that it will be for the better, that in the end people will come out thinking analytically and taking responsibility for their bad decisions without beating themselves up over it. Then, there will be men in our society again.